Spotlighted Student: Daniel Hochberg, 2011

Published on: 11/29/10

Daniel Hochberg ‘11 hadn’t heard of Haverford College until Haverford’s baseball coach, Dave Beccaria, recruited him to be one of Haverford’s right-handed pitchers. He wasn’t initially keen on attending such a small school but when he toured the campus and saw the arboretum he liked the feel. It didn’t feel like a small school – in fact it felt like a big school.

As a result Daniel applied early decision. Raised in McLean, Virginia, baseball has always been a key component in his life. Without knowing he had an injury, he started his college baseball career needing reconstructive surgery (Tommy John surgery) which involved replacing a ligament in the elbow with a tendon from his hamstring. He was unable to play for Haverford as a freshman, and he rarely played during his sophomore year. His elbow is now fully healed and functioning and he’s been on the team full force since his junior year.

Because baseball wasn’t on the forefront of his freshman and sophomore years it gave him the opportunity to delve into the universal Haverford experience and, he has loved every minute of it even though he wasn’t playing the sport.

As he entered college he had considered taking some Economics classes because of his appeal for business and an affinity for statistics. Freshman year he took an Introduction to Macroeconomics course and then backed off from economics until second semester of his sophomore year.

Professor Saleha Jilani’s Introduction to Microeconomics class interested him so he delved more deeply into the discipline and has since been taking 2-3 economics classes each semester in order to meet the Economics Major requirement.

The summer before he started at Haverford College he played baseball and interned with Headfirst, a Washington, DC based company that offers multi-sports programs and college advisory services for student-athletes. Not only did Daniel play on one of their teams but he also made recruiting videos and kept contact with college coaches.

During the summers of his rising sophomore and junior years he interned with Players Edge Training, located in McLean, VA. This organization’s goal is to provide baseball and softball athletes with a greater understanding of the game, reduce injury and to improve performance while building confidence. Daniel’s primary roles included scheduling events and database management.

This past summer he joined Coach Beccaria helping to organize and facilitate Haverford’s long-standing and traditional baseball camp although, the majority of his summer break was spent studying for the GMAT.

In about two or three years he plans to go back to school to earn a Masters in Business. However, by the time commencement comes around (or soon thereafter) he hopes to have secured an entry level position in the financial sector or in the insurance industry.

In fact, a finance class he’s taking this semester has opened his eyes to business and commerce. So much so that he foresees making a career out of the baseball industry with a financial bent; a dream come true!

Under the tutelage of economics Professor David Owens, Daniel’s thesis aims to examine the effects of positive recency on future earnings in industries where performance statistics are measurable. As a case study, Daniel hopes to utilize statistics and salary figures in Major League Baseball to determine the effect of deviations in trend in contract year performance on future salary and future performance for baseball players.

In essence, he hopes to discover whether player contracts are irrationally influenced by deviations in performance during a player’s final year under contract resulting in contracts that do not fall in line with players’ career averages. He is currently in the process of compiling a large dataset in order to conduct his analysis.